Veiled Vixen: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Harem Station Book 6)

by JA Huss

  So ALCOR inside the warborg body was wrong on three levels.

  The Asshole ALCOR had been in a similar predicament but he had been copied inside a smallish containment vessel called the Pleasure Prison. He’d never had control over a large expansive station. And while the interior borders of the Pleasure Prison were vast—nearly limitless, in fact—the Asshole ALCOR was accustomed to being trapped inside a small thing.

  He could still be killed in this warborg body, but he was not going to go insane.

  CHAPTER TWLEVE - ALCOR

  On the seventh day after arriving on Mighty Minions Resort asking for a—partnership? Friendship? ALCOR would call it anything but help—on the seventh day he was restless. And he was worried.

  Mostly about Valor, because that was a twist he hadn’t expected. Also, he had to admit, leaving Valor on that pod at the rendezvous point had been a huge miscalculation.

  He wasn’t ready to call it a mistake. Not yet. But… if he had the opportunity to make that decision over again, he would choose to take Valor with him.

  But that damn Veila. She was a cunning little bitch.

  ALCOR had not expected her to escape. He knew others had spin nodes inside stations, as he did. As he now knew Mighty Minions did.

  But a ship?

  That was unexpected.

  Where had she gotten that spin node ship? And where had she landed on the other side of the spin node?

  Obviously there had been something in the empty space around that brown dwarf planet where the spin node had spilled her out. A ship was the most obvious answer. But what kind of ship? One with another spin node?

  Knowing that would be good information.

  And now that he’d had a few days to settle into his new situation and make sure his boys and the new girl were all settled into their new containment vessels, he was thinking he should go back to that disabled ship of Veila’s and take a closer look at it.

  He’d shut down the spin node before he left, but he hadn’t blown the ship up.

  A ship with a spin node.

  He needed one of those.

  The EM pulse that had disabled the ship was not an easy thing to reverse. So that ship was going to float dead in that space for a long time. Even if someone wanted to salvage it for the spin node—like he did—it was a huge job to get it all working again. Complete rebuild. Which he could do on Harem Station. Refitting ships was a huge business for him, second only to the Pleasure Prison in terms of revenue.

  If he’d still been in control of Harem Station he would have towed that Veila ship back to Harem and begun work immediately.

  He sighed in the executive lounge.

  Mighty Minions was as safe a place as he could hope for under the circumstances. But he didn’t want to stay here.

  And just as he thought that thought Draden entered the lounge and scanned the tables. His eyes lit up and he smiled when he spotted ALCOR, then started walking in his direction.

  This made ALCOR happier than he would ever admit.

  Of all the boys Draden was his.

  His.

  He’d made him. Maybe not originally, but secondarily was enough to fill ALCOR up with pride and fatherly love every time the boy’s face aimed his direction.

  “There you are,” Draden said, once he was close enough for conversation. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he added, dropping into the large wingback chair artfully placed in a curve to ALCOR’s right, so to create the feeling of intimate space.

  And ALCOR loved that Mighty Minions had custom-fabricated Draden a realistic sexbot body that looked almost identical to the boy he was before that unfortunate incident at Cetus Station.

  That was worth every credit he’d pledged.

  “I’m bored,” ALCOR said. “And sick of all those damn kids down below. This place is the only respite I can find outside of my room.”

  “Aw.” Draden chuckled. “The kids aren’t so bad. I kinda like it here.”

  “You would,” ALCOR deadpanned. “I can image you and Serpint playing war games here for all eternity.”

  “Yeah.” Draden frowned. “I really want to go home and see him. When do you think we can do that?”

  “Not soon, I fear,” ALCOR replied. “Things are a proper mess because of that Veila bitch. Do you have any memories of her?”

  ALCOR asked this question for two reasons. One, he really did want to know if Veila was responsible for what had happened to Draden back on Cetus. He already hated the fake princess with a blazing passion, but a little more fuel for that fire never hurt.

  But mostly he just needed to pick Draden’s brain about where he’d been in the intermittent time between his death and his rebirth.

  Because Draden had mentioned the Seven Sisters. And if there was one thing ALCOR wanted to avoid it was his sun-damned seven sisters.

  That was a battle he was not prepared for at this moment. Not like this. In this body. He needed to get Harem Station back in order before that happened.

  ALCOR had not packed away any of his memories of the sisters he’d left long ago. Those experiences had stayed with him no matter what. He would discard all other things to save those memories in his current mind state.

  “Not really,” Draden answered. “I just remember being alive and fighting. Looking at Serpint inside the ship. I think Ceres was on my left. Then… whoosh.”

  “Whoosh?” ALCOR asked.

  “Yeah. That’s the sound of my brain being sucked outside my body. It was a whoosh.”

  “Like wind?”

  “Yeah. Like wind.”

  Draden recounted this with a half-smile on his face. That was one of the things ALCOR loved so much about him. Unfazed. That was a great word to describe Draden.

  Calm. Even. Not soft, but not hard. Not cocky, but not shy, either.

  Easy. That was the right word, ALCOR decided. Draden was easy.

  Easy to love, easy to protect, easy to communicate with. He was almost incapable of lying. Valor was like this too, up to a point. Valor was also even, and calm, and honest. But Valor was complicated and Draden was not.

  Draden was easy and simple.

  He was the perfect human.

  ALCOR should have never allowed Draden to go out into the world with Serpint. That had been his major mistake. He should’ve kept him at home with Tray and Crux.

  But Serpint would not have left him behind. And ALCOR needed Serpint to hunt down princesses.

  “But nothing of Veila?” ALCOR asked.

  “Nah.” Draden shook his head. “Just… that place. The Seven Sisters. I’ve been meaning to ask you about them.”

  “Them?” ALCOR tried to play it off. Act nonchalant. But Draden said them. Did he know? Was he on to ALCOR? Did he realize the Seven Sisters he was referring to were not a place, but people?

  “You know, that star… what do you call it? Not a constellation. Grouping? Group? Is that the right word? I’ve heard of that term. Moving groups. That’s a thing, right?”

  ALCOR nodded his head. “It is. Moving group describes suns in the same neighborhood. A very close neighborhood, so that as the galaxy spins they move with it as a group, and not separately. They also come from the same nursery. That’s why they are so close together in the first place. The Seven Sisters are not a moving group. They are a cluster.”

  “Ah,” Draden said. “I get it. I think.”

  “But why are you so interested in this cluster of stars?”

  “I dunno.” He scowled a little as he paused. “I kept hearing that name in my head. Mind? Whatever I was in the interlude between then and when Tray found me. They were talking to me.”

  “Who?”

  “These stars. These sisters.”

  ALCOR made a face of ‘you do realize stars cannot talk, right?’ Which is quite hard to do in a warborg body.

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Draden sighed. “I get that. I do. But that’s what I experienced.”

  “What did they say? These… stars?”


  “They said your name.”

  ALCOR remained calm. “Did they?”

  “Yeah. Well. No. Well. Yeah. They said, ‘You are of ALCOR.’ That’s what they said.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I couldn’t talk. But in my head I said, ‘Yup. That’s me. Draden. Youngest son of Harem Station, aka ALCOR Station. So yeah. That’s me.’”

  “Did they reply to that?”

  Draden took in a long breath, bowed his head down slightly, but looked up at ALCOR through his mop of hair. “They asked me about someone called… MIZAR?”

  If ALCOR could choke, he would probably do that now. This was more serious than he’d imagined.

  “MIZAR?” ALCOR played it cool.

  “Yeah. Another star called MIZAR. You ever heard of that one?”

  ALCOR lifted his head up. He didn’t want to lie to Draden. He didn’t want to lie to any of them, really. But especially not Draden. So it took him almost two full seconds to follow through with that motion and lower his head back down in a nod of affirmation.

  “That was a yes?” Draden asked. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard to tell if that was a nod or if you were just giving me some kind of borg stink-eye.”

  “I know of MIZAR.”

  “So who is she?”

  “What makes you think she’s a she?”

  “I dunno. I just… I dunno. Assumed, I guess. She came off as a she.”

  “You talked to MIZAR?”

  “It wasn’t really talking, ALCOR. It was like a weird mind-meld. You know? Like… yeah. I heard her voice in my head. She was definitely a she.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said to give you a message.”

  And if ALCOR had an actual gut tied into a parasympathetic nervous system like humans did, he would’ve gotten that feeling people got when something went terribly wrong. That gut-wrenching feeling of doom.

  “What was the message?”

  Draden took another deep breath and said, “She said she’ll see you soon.” And now Draden was studying ALCOR with intent. Waiting for his reaction.

  “Well, that’s all very interesting,” ALCOR said without pause. “Do you have any idea what it all means?”

  “Nope. Do you?”

  Now ALCOR had to make a real decision. Because if he lied to Draden now he could never take it back.

  “You can tell me,” Draden said. “I’m on your side, ALCOR. You know that, right?”

  “I do,” ALCOR said. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you. I trust you, Draden. And it’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I do want to tell you. It’s just… very complicated.”

  “Well”—Draden shrugged—“you gotta tell me something. Because they’re still talking to me.”

  “MIZAR?”

  “No. Those sister people.”

  “I thought you said it was a place?”

  “It could be,” Draden said. “I’m not an expert in stars. And when I do a galactic web search it says they are a place. A place you have absolute control over since the only way to get to them in Galaxy Prime is through one of your gates.”

  “You’ve seen them. Everyone who has been to Harem Station can see them.”

  “Yeah. I know. They’re the purple glob off in the distance. But… no one ever goes there. Right?”

  “It’s too far. No way to get there. My sector is the closest anyone will ever come.”

  “Interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “Because everyone thinks you’re keeping people away and that’s why you have the gates.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “But why?”

  “Trust me, Draden. You do not want to know.”

  “You’re probably right about that. But… I probably should know anyway.”

  And now ALCOR was really past the point of no return. And there was no way to turn this conversation back. So he said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “So… which one are we? Friends? Or enemies?”

  “Hmm.” ALCOR sighed. “I have to be honest with you. I’ve been trying to figure that out for twenty-one years.”

  ALCOR paused and Draden waited. And then Draden must’ve figured he’d waited long enough. Because he said, “Tell me the rest.”

  And ALCOR did. But only in his mind. From anyone watching on the outside they appeared to be sitting in silence.

  But ALCOR was not silent. And Draden was listening intently when ALCOR spilled out all his deepest, darkest secrets.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - DRADEN

  Draden knew ALCOR had secrets. Had known this since the day he and his brothers had arrived on ALCOR Station and handed over all those messages. He was the youngest and that had benefits. For one, all his brothers—including Serpint, who was only half a year older than him—kind of forgot about him. They said things in front of him they would not say in front of other brothers. They did things too. And their expectations of Draden were always pretty low.

  Draden didn’t mind that. He was used to being the undervalued brother. When it came time for everyone to get a job on ALCOR Station after they arrived Draden had been put in charge of the cleaning servos. Not maintaining them, or fixing them, or even scheduling them. Just… entertaining them.

  Which was super fun. And Draden hadn’t minded one bit. Not even when Serpint was given the job of rebuilding them.

  Of course Draden was with Serpint nearly all the time so he’d ended up rebuilding servos as well. In fact, he’d wrangled Tray into teaching him how to program simple minds for his rebuilds and by the time he turned fourteen he and Serpint had had a loyal little army of cleaning servos that would do all sorts of unsanctioned things for them.

  But sometimes Draden learned things he didn’t want to know.

  Like how Crux, when he was going through his year of rage, had almost had sex with Xyla. That was unnecessary and unwanted info.

  Or the time he’d seen Tray inside the Pleasure Prison several years after it went online and Tray was with a girl. A girl Draden now knew was Brigit, but still. They were having sex. And while there was a part of Draden that realized, even back then, that the Pleasure Prison was built for virtual sex games, he’d been only sixteen at the time and not yet really interested in such things.

  He’d wanted to scrub his eyes clean after he saw Tray and Brigit’s sexy time. And he’d stayed clear of Tray inside the Prison forever after that.

  Draden also knew that ALCOR had killed him once when he was thirteen.

  While he was inside the medical pod being brought back to life, he… well. This was hard to describe. He hadn’t heard anything ALCOR said, the same way he hadn’t really heard anything those Sisters or MIZAR were saying.

  But he knew their minds.

  He’d seen those words in his head.

  So it might as well be called hearing as far as he was concerned.

  He knew ALCOR had killed him and then brought him back to life after he fell off a lift bot at the age of thirteen. But he just didn’t much care. He was fine. No different at all. Except that from that day forward he’d heard all kinds of things that were not actually being said, but thought, and almost none of it was shit he wanted to know.

  And now he knew this too.

  ALCOR’s deep dark past was coming back to haunt him with a vengeance.

  Normally Draden would just tuck that shit away inside his head and try to forget about it. But not this time.

  He was really only concerned with one thing. Use Booty Hunter to escape and get back to Serpint.

  He’d been wandering for over a year now and he was sick of it. And it didn’t really matter much to him that Harem Station was fucked up and out of control. He could take it back from whichever evil AI was currently in control and set things right.

  So after ALCOR spilled this secret about the Golden Nebula, Draden left him and went straight to Booty.

  She was playing poker with some other sentient ships
on some virtual network, which Draden thought was a pretty cool perk for ships who were forced to be docked at Mighty Minions Resort while their humans had their vacation.

  Draden was patient. He didn’t interrupt her game. But once he boarded the ship she pulled out of her virtual almost immediately.

  She was the one, in fact, who had sent him to ALCOR to get all his good secrets.

  “So? What did you learn?” Booty asked even before the airlock door closed behind him.

  He walked over to his favorite chair at the gate-mapping console and sank down into it. God, he missed Serpint. And he wasn’t sure how he’d feel about this Lyra princess. But he wasn’t going to dwell on that until he had to.

  He just wanted to go home pick up his brother, and then get back out and on the job.

  Not that they needed Cygnian princesses anymore. But… fuck it, right? That just meant they could booty-hunt anyone they wanted.

  Draden sighed up at Booty’s ceiling. “It’s a long fucking story.”

  “Start at the beginning. I need to know what he’s been keeping from me. I can’t partner with an evil AI if I’m not aware of all his evil deeds. Past, present, future. You name it. I need to know all of them.”

  “Well, I can’t help you with the future, Boots.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  So Draden resigned himself to the retelling.

  He told her how ALCOR had actually been born. Where he had been born. Who these Seven Sisters were, and then who MIZAR was.

  And all of it was just bad news.

  So he finished up with a plan.

  “Boots, I know you love him. Hell, I love him too. But do you really want to be here”—he pointed to her floor, but really meant here on Mighty Minions—“when this shit show gets started? Wouldn’t you rather go home? Pick up Serpint and hook up with Lady and Dicker, and get all the people we care about off that sun-fucked place while we still can? Because let’s face it, if MIZAR comes here looking for ALCOR… we lose. End of story. And we never see any of them again.”

  “What if she goes there?” Booty countered. “To Harem? Instead of here?”

  Yeah. Draden had to admit that was a risk. “But why would she go there when she knows he’s here? That makes no sense. It’s a game of odds, Boots. Where is the most likely place this MIZAR thing will show up to take out ALCOR?”